I concur, DMB. However, I would like to point out that if you're a Bilkent teacher who wants to attend the Bilkent TEFL conference, you have to pay up, just like the other punters. No discount, nothing.

well..I work and live at Bilkent and I have to say that I like it here. I love my apartment. I love my students. I love my neighbors. I love my space. I like the gym. I love the fox family that lives near my garden. I love going to Real on weekdays with no traffic. I love it that Starbucks is a 5-min drive from my home. I don't love classical music. But if I want to, I can go to a concert every Friday night (2 mins from my apartment). Actually,there are many things to like here.

From what I've heard they have a pretty impressive international reputation. Why is this?

quote="Entrailicus"]From what I've heard they have a pretty impressive international reputation. Why is this?[/quote]

It is bought with cash. Bilkent as I have said is a billion dollar business and they buy a select few foreign academics who have an international reputation. The other 99.9% of staff get the standard 5-1200 dollar a month salary. Consider that the majority of students efectively fail the Turkish state university exam and buy their degree. Finally there is the snob value. You have to have money to go to Bilkent (except for a percentage of scholarship students who bump up the IQ level) so it must be good.

BTW Bilkent did not make the top 500 universities in the world according to a recent survey.

well..I work and live at Bilkent and I have to say that I like it here. I love my apartment. I love my students. I love my neighbors. I love my space. I like the gym. I love the fox family that lives near my garden. I love going to Real on weekdays with no traffic. I love it that Starbucks is a 5-min drive from my home. I don't love classical music. But if I want to, I can go to a concert every Friday night (2 mins from my apartment). Actually,there are many things to like here.

There's a Starbucks????? That there makes it worth it.
Tell me, where is it????

Can anyone hook me up with a link for this top 500 universities thing? Also Bilkent does pull out the stops for its conferences in the ELT world and gets alot of the big wigs in the industry to give seminars. I wish there more of these things going on in Turkey

Can anyone hook me up with a link for this top 500 universities thing? Also Bilkent does pull out the stops for its conferences in the ELT world and gets alot of the big wigs in the industry to give seminars. I wish there more of these things going on in Turkey

I think your experiences of the hazirlik program can not be used to judge the entire university.

True. Hazirlik programmes by their very nature are not representative of a university as a whole. They are very profitable for a private university and tend to weed out students. But Bilkent operate hazirlik as a ruthless business and cynically allow students who clearly cannnot cope to enroll in it and in diploma programmes in order to milk them.

By the way, there are no Turkish universities on the top 500 survey. Does this mean ODTU, Bogazici, Hacettepe, etc. are crap universitites?

Interesting point and difficult to answer briefly but I will try.

Firstly I never said Bilkent was crap. The MA TEFL programme is highly regarded in Turkey and gives a select few from not only Turkey but countries such as Azerbaycan a chance to take a paid year off and mix with the kind of people who will be the future in EFL in Turkey and other countries. It really is a unique programme.

No Turkish university nor any Arab university made the top 500. But 3 Israeli universities did. Part of the problem of Turkish universties is that they are crippled by a lack of money. They do little in the way of research and cannot afford to subscribe to journals let alone publish and attend international conferences. True some unis like Bosphorous have a fund that teachers can apply to if they want to attend conferences but it is limited. Add to that air fares, visas etc. it is difficult.

Sadly the very way a top uni is graded excludes unis in poorer countries.

I know dozens of Bilkent graduates who have gone on to do their PHDs in America,

Not surprising since Bilkent has been on the go for quite some time and has graduated a lot of scholarship students who are the best of the best in Turkey. Other fee paying graduates can of course afford to pay for a PHD anywhere in the world. I am not knocking the cream of the cream at Bilkent or anywhere else.

and then have become professors in the United States.
I am sure they have done well. But the majoriy of Bilkent students are rich kids who are buying a piece of paper while enjoying life in a rich bubble.